Iron Maiden

Tue 22nd Feb, 2011 in Features

Veterans of the metal genre, Iron Maiden, are in the middle of a world tour promoting their latest album, The Final Frontier, which will see them headline Australia’s biggest metal/punk festival, Soundwave, as well as taking their elaborate stage show to Sydney and Melbourne stadiums.

Adrian Smith, one of the three guitarists in Iron Maiden, spoke to FasterLouder about the Soundwave tour, winning over new fans and the difficulty of playing Guitar Hero when you’re already a rock legend. Smith has been a member of Iron Maiden during two eras of the band’s epic career – playing with the group at the peak of their success between 1981-1990, and playing with Adrian Smith And Project and Psycho Motel before rejoining the band in 1999.

Hi Adrian, where are you at the moment and what’s happening?
We are in Singapore at the moment and we’re playing a show tonight. We just played a show in Moscow on Saturday, I think.

Is it getting hard to keep track of the days?
Ha, yep! We’ve gone over a couple different time zones and we’re all nicely jet-lagged and disorientated. We’re on the road!

First off, congratulations to you and the rest of Iron Maiden for winning your first Grammy award (Best Metal Performance) for El Dorado from your new album, The Final Frontier. How does it feel to finally have that kind of recognition? Is that something that’s important to Iron Maiden?
I don’t know really. I kind of see us as having our own sort of niche. It’s a very simple connection with us and our fans and we’ve always kind of tried to bypass the business or corporate side of it. I don’t know that it’s that important to us, the Grammys, but it’s kind of nice to get that recognition. As a band, we just do what we do.

I know that the band has received little to no airplay over the years and yet you still managed to build this massive, dedicated audience worldwide that has obviously been enough to fuel the continuation of the band for so many years.
That’s the recognition that’s important to us.